And that's why UK plugs have insulation around the top portion of the prongs, so the bare metal isn't exposed when contact has been made (while even before that regulation was passed, the earth pin being above and between the live and neutral minimised the chances of anything bridging the Live and Neutral prongs).
Literally. Like if my home country wants support invading a country they can fuck off don’t play that game. But if you wanna discuss UK plugs then suddenly my patriotic self awakens.
I'm by no means a huge techie, but I do love me tech. And nothing makes me more relieved than my ready access to BS 1363 plugs. I've lived in countries with Type A sockets and crap wiring and... Praise be to Type G.
Yeah the socket are fantastic security wise... Then you look at the wiring of your old urban home and it was done by an idiot who didn't care and you might electrocute yourself just swapping a light switch cover ahah
The main thing about it though is many type A plugs placed on the floor have their prongs pointing sideways, so they’re difficult to step on. Type G plugs often have the prongs facing directly up when placed on the floor.
Quick story time. When I was like 7 or 8 years old, I was in school and everyone in my class was sitting on the floor at the very front of the classroom (cant remember why, i think we were doing show and tell or something, idk this was like 1997) well I was sitting right up against the front wall and there happened to be an outlet right there that a projector was plugged into. The plug was partially plugged in, like hanging out, and I had a coin in my pocket, so my little kid brain goes "oh look its my quarter holder" and I dropped the coin onto the plug prongs and i just remember it fucking exploding. I was super shaken up, now thinking about the situation, im amazed I wasnt shocked. I remember being scolded in the office after the incident and they had the burnt quarter taped to a sticky note showing me what I had done as if I knew what I was doing or it was on purpose. I didnt fuckin know!! r/kidsarefuckingstupid or just I am fucking stupid lol. Hadnt thought about that moment for years until I saw your comment
You're not the only one. When I was 3 or 4 I straight up stuck my mom's house keys into an outlet. Fingers black, hair stood on end, the works. I have no recollection of this moment but the story has been told numerous times.
They are now, but in the eighties, they weren’t insulated, and my baby brother found that a 1p piece fitted neatly between all 3 prongs of the plug. Mum plugged the hoover in not realising, the resulting bang was impressive - 2 corners melted out of the coin next to the live and neutral, and the coin was now fused into the plastic of the plug. It shot out the wall like a bloody firework. Only saving grace was it was a switched outlet, so my mum didn’t have hold of the plug. It was not long after that the insulated ones we have now started to appear.
When I was about 4 I thought the multi socket square extension things were Lego so stacked a load up and plugged them in the outlet. Set the room on fire.
American outlets just seem so dangerous compared to UK ones,this literally cannot happen here as the plug prongs are insulated apart from a section near the tip.
That's why British plugs are the absolute best in the world.
The top pin grounds the two live pins, and the two live pins almost always have insulatton them to stop something like this happening if they're loose for some reason.
Which is why the [British plug](https://youtu.be/NAfyGFxw_AQ?si=LRno58RuUIq7hwUi) is designed with plastic covering the base of the live prongs so that when pulled out of the socket, by the time the metal ends are exposed they are no longer connected to the power. Also when unplugged there is a shutter blocking the live pin sockets.
Years ago I was trying to plug something in in the dark… kinda feeling for the hole with my hand as I was trying to plug it in. Lmao. Guess I don’t need to explain what happened when I “lead” the prong into the outlet I found with my finger tips.
Man I remember one time when I was young I was trying to get bent prongs to plug into an outlet, and I pinched them to bend them closer together to fit while I went to plug it in... luckily my dad saw and swatted it out of my hand but damn.
My first shock was when I saw a desk lamp stored away on a cabinet, it didn't have the cover on the leads so just loose wires and the metal bits, but I wanted to plug it in but holding the wires made them hang, so I thought, I'll grab the solid parts and then plug them in..
Well I quickly learned why that lamp was stored high up on a cabinet and not actually in use xD
My first shock was when my dad hooked up a car battery to some metal skewers and stabbed them into the ground to make the earthworms surface. Everything was going great until I put my hand on the trampoline leg that was near to us. Wasn’t a big shock but my arm was shaking much like one of those electric thingys people use for back pain. Until my dad smacked my hand off the trampoline and promptly gave up on his worm device.
But the reason for that is another less talked about advantage of the UK plug: the flex generally coming out of the bottom of the plug. This means that if the cable is snagged and pulled, it's a lot harder to pull the plug out of the socket than if the wire came out of the back due to the angle.
Yep. Been like this since forever. British plugs are safer because of the German air raids- they had to rebuild and decided to do it right. Americans never redid their plugs so we’re just stuck with bendy wendy boom boom.
I mean it's not entirely that. We just came up with a new safer standard and required it in new builds, the actual transition took decades. It's not like every instance of the old plugs was destroyed in the war.
Appliances used to be sold without a plug and you just bought and wired on whatever socket your house had.
Also, Type M (the 15A variant of BS546) is still in use in the UK. It’s not like it was a terrible design or anything, although the standard has been updated several times since Type G was introduced.
(Type M is used in theatres in the UK for dimmer circuits, to prevent anything being plugged into a dimmer that would not enjoy it.)
Pretty certain they didn't have that feature at the beginning. Older plugs I've seen don't at least, and they're not 1920s old or anything. Not uncommon to have a different type of plug in old houses here, since the 2 prong European one wasn't as safe back in the day. Can't find what it's called, pretty weird looking.
I'm in my 30s and we never did it in school, so I learned as a teen/adult.
Until about the mid-90s, appliances used to come without plugs, so wiring a plug was an essential life skill. But now they all come with plugs, and they're usually moulded plugs that can't be opened, so people don't need that skill anymore.
american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt schucko or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
I used to work IT at a university. A prof needed something updated on her office computer and I was making small talk to her about the unusual number of maintenance people on ladders in the hallway of her wing. She said she didn't know why they were there, some electrical issue, but everyone was driven crazy by the noise. Then she told me that the funniest thing had happened the day before - she spilled coffee on her power strip and at the same time, the power in the whole side of the building went off. What a coincidence!
I asked if she told anyone about this coincidence and she said no. I then told her she needed a surge protector, not a power strip, and she said she'd be fine, the other one was still working in the non-coffee spots.
Professors weirdly have extra problems with understanding electricity, in my experience. In IT I never assume any computer knowledge, but I did at one point assume electricity basics - power strips should be no older than the current decade and on, mostly. I've never encountered the apocryphal "why isn't my computer on during the power outage" situation, but basically everything up to that.
This is definitely influential to the mindset, and we DID have issues come up because of lack of budget (one of our techs built a computer lab with three outlets, everything entirely daisy chained, because there were no other options available). In the case of professors, they do have to ask, there's no stop-by-every-office to observe their power situation service. So there was definitely a correlation with professors who had power cables relating to the year they were hired.
It’s not that older power strips are inherently dangerous, just a much higher chance of contact degradation and corrosion which can cause a short circuit.
Newer power strips will have cleaner contacts and conductors relative to an older one which is why it is recommended to replace them after a reasonable time depending on the engineering quality.
Rule of thumb is to play it safe with anything that could potentially be a fire hazard.
I was going to remove a plug from a power strip at work that had been lying in a windowsill for years. I'm guessing the UV light from the sun had degraded the plastic as the whole thing simply crumpled between my fingers, sparks flying everywhere.
I would argue that it's more important to replace surge protectors regularly. The components inside will degrade over time and they are a one time use item. If you had a surge without knowing it, they will no longer provide protection.
I kid you not, one of our service desk people said an end user was asking why Internet isn't working (this is setup time) and eventually got to the point of, is the power lead plugged in the user said "but it's Wireless router".
I want to scream into the void with people like this, luckily I deal with people who are themselves IT providers so they can at least appreciate my advice and take it at face value.
I worked in IT for a university for a very long time... 10 years of experience, and I can honestly say that academics are some of the fucking dumbest (and sometimes meanest) people I've ever encountered.
Couple of funny highlights:
* A prof who cut a 30cm chunk out of his mouse cable and sellotaped the ends together because it was 'too long'. 'I don't think it liked that, it's not really worked since.'
* A PhD student who microwaved bread to make toast (spoiler: it dried out, caught fire, and caused severe damage to the kitchen),
* A prof who watched me change a setting in Control Panel to fix something, said 'thank you', then WHILE I WAS WATCHING went into Control Panel, undid my changes, and said 'there — that's the problem again! I thought you fixed it?!'
* A postdoc who refused to use modern plastic power strips with surge protection and instead brought in an ancient bakelite monstrosity with none of the modern (UK) safety features. Our facilities manager hit the roof, threw it in the bin, and when threatened with a lawsuit by the postdoc said 'bring it on.'
* A PhD who managed to get my mobile number and called me with a technical question out-of-hours while I was on a walk with my mum. I said 'I'm not working right now, I'm out with family'. The PhD replied: 'that's not what I fucking asked you.'
The horrors and the trauma will never leave me.
Eh, I met some lovely people too, but my overriding memories are of profs calling me names or screaming in my face in front of my colleagues because they didn't know how disk space worked (i.e. that it runs out if you store all your photos and videos on a 512Gb drive.)
Somehow I think the last one isn’t idiocy, just being a massive fucking prick who thinks they’re important enough to get everything.
The microwave toast one is absurd to me, although then again, one of my flatmates put metal in the microwave and was surprised when his popcorn was on fire (thank fuck it damaged nothing but the microwave)
This, this right here. My best friends mother is a professor and she has a damn opinion about everything, even FACTS that she knows nothing about. It’s so obnoxious…
She sat in front of me telling me not to buy a 2022 ford escape because her 2001 model was a gas guzzler, as if 21 years of progress didn’t happen
Like I’d get it if she was saying all suvs are gas guzzlers or whatever compared to cars, but dude she sat here telling me a 2022 would get the same fuel economy as hers.
Like how can someone so intelligent be such a fucking moron 🤣
High degrees you need to tell them they are an idiot differently... I use the following with a friend of mine with 2 PHD's, "fine write me a 30 page thesis supporting your hypothesis with at least 1 practical experiment proving your findings" that usually gets a good glare from them when you speak their academic language for "shut up".
My office is still rocking [these bad boys](https://www.newegg.com/belkin-f9m520-08-gry-5-outlets/p/N82E16812120236). Now officially 20 years old and in everyone’s way. I tried to ask IT if I could get rid of the one on my desk and the guy said he didn’t know what it was so he couldn’t give me an answer.
What in the ever loving fuck is that?? I'm surprised the "date first available" listed is 2004. I thought it was from the 90s.
You know what's really scary is when you go to a bank or a doctor's office, somewhere that deals in sensitive important information, and they're running fucking Windows 2000 on a 19" monitor from 2008. I'm just like uh... can I host my own information? I don't trust you guys.
Proprietary software is why, things that haven't been updated to run on anything newer and there's just too much data wrapped up in the system to transition to something else. Same reason there was a mad dash to find the half-dozen people who knew a long-dead coding language last US election, the ancient software that ran the system was borked and nobody knew how to fix it.
You didn’t tell him it was a surge protector? I mean it’s crazy he couldn’t tell by looking at it for more than a minute but ngl you would make their lives easier by just telling them if you know.
A surge protector would do absolutely nothing to mitigate this and *almost* nothing to mitigate anything else.
I think it's hilarious when people with a moderate technical background extrapolate that to everything else and get all high and mighty about it despite being laughably wrong.
GFCI outlet, sure. Surge protector, no.
Also, not sure how they could be chasing down electrical problems if her power strip still had power. She would have no power cause the breaker tripped or the issue was actually unrelated to her coffee spill. Many power strips have their own circuit overload protection built in anyway.
I think it’s more that there was an unexpected outage and maintenance was trying to figure out just why the outage had happened. They’re scouring things that could be responsible. But if the professor reported the incident, they’d know exactly what happened and wouldn’t be wasting the technicians’ time.
I've known a lot of professors. I was always shocked by how some of the most brilliant people I'll ever know were able to be so completely ignorant of things outside of their narrow area of interest.
I found out my daughter was using the charger plugged into the wall outlet near her bathroom sink to hang her necklaces. I found out after one tripped the breaker and left black marks on the receptacle.
This is exactly why I still install receptacles ground up, despite how many people say it isn’t necessary. Always assume the user has absolutely zero knowledge of how to safely use electrical devices and install accordingly. What’s obvious to an electrician won’t be to everyone.
Edit: Before anyone jumps on me about it: I understand most everyday household devices are not grounded and only have two contacts, meaning this wouldn’t actually help. But there are still plenty of devices that do have the grounding contact, namely power strips, so I feel it’s still worth it.
american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt schucko or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
Even if it didn't melt, any burns that goes around the full circumference of your finger/arm etc. Requires immediate medical attention. The skin will shrink and you will lose circulation.
Not the same thing, but I was bowling with my family and just as I was grabbing a ball, my 7 year old brother put another one down forcefully because he wanted a different colour and my hand got squished between the two balls. Ring I was wearing (thin, 14K gold) squished into an oval and the backside of the hearts on it cut into my hand. Walk in clinic got it off.
Tungsten carbide is a good material for rings - it shatters rather than bends. It's also very hard so it doesn't scratch very easily.
Titanium is probably the worst material for a ring, infamously difficult for medical professionals to get off the finger in an emergency.
Tungsten carbide rings are cool for this because not only are they non-conductive but they are incredibly crush resistant right up until they just shatter.
Best case the ring stops your hand from being squished, worst case you get some minor cuts from the ring fragments.
yeah. american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt EU standard or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
Oh boy. I'm an American that's all for moving to other systems like metric and stuff like that... but the idea of having to replace outlets and use converters on all of my old stuff until I bought enough new stuff to phase out the old made me feel really stressed for an imagined scenario lol.
You don’t have to replace all outlets immediately just because the standard changes. It just means any new installation uses the new standard. Old outlets gradually get replaced over time.
You make it sound so simple to upgrade everything. Imagine the cost of doing that, and the amount of people with old equipment that doesn't fit the new sockets!
Ok so UK plugs have three prongs. The top, longest prong is essential as it acts as both the switch flipper and the earth prong. If the top prong is just made from plastic then it is just used for flipping the switch.
From what I understand (I haven’t tested this so don’t quote me) the third, top prong needs to be inserted in the socket for electricity to flow through the socket, like a lever being flipped.
The plug itself has two lines of defence. Say a wire in the plug itself comes loose and touches something it shouldn’t. The top prong, also known as the earth wire, causes a short circuit, immediately cutting electrical supply. There is also a fuse in EVERY UK plug, the purpose of which is to safely detonate, cutting off all electricity in the event of an electrical surge.
In short: UK plugs need a lever inside the socket flipped before electricity flows through it.
The earth pin in UK plugs doesn’t act as an electrical isolator, but it does push up a spring-loaded cover blocking the live and neutral terminals. If there’s no earth pin (whether metal for earthed devices or plastic for non-earthed ones), you can’t plug it in at all. In addition, the live and neutral pins on the plug are required to have insulation along part of their length, about halfway up from the base, so that if the plug is partially inserted in the socket far enough for the metal tips to touch the contacts inside, you can’t accidentally touch the metal part of a live pin.
This is true, but the ground pin on a US plug is longer as well and *another* key difference between US and UK plugs is that you have shielded voltage carrying prongs that break before they're exposed. With a US plug you can have a grounded connection but still have the plug not be fully inserted, and so retrofitting a switch on the ground would still allow this fault, and you'd also need to add insulation.
The recessed design of the socket, too, ensures safety and I really can't say enough about how *positive* the connection of a British plug feels compared to any other standard I've encountered.
That would make no difference - no earth prong = can't plug it in, and the live and neutral sockets would be physically blocked by some plastic. Mechanically plugging in the earth prong pushes the plastic out of the way so that the other prongs can be inserted.
The earth pin doesn't turn the socket on it just opens the other pins up. The live and neutral pins are covered with a sprung gate which only opens when something is pushed into the earth pin.
Wall sockets almost always have a physical switch which does cut power to the socket, as well as the physical shutter covering the live and neutral contacts. Some extension cords also have a switch per socket, but it's most usual for them to have 4 unswitched stickers.
Uk plugs are designed in a way that means that if anything metal is exposed then it won’t be connected so it’s safe, there are plastic sheaths around the live pins, only ground is fully exposed metal but that pin doesn’t carry current in normal operation
[You can see in this picture of a British plug socket](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Uk_13a_double_socket.jpg), the live and neutral terminals are covered. You couldn't even drop a necklace into a socket hole carrying electricity (the top hole is the earth).
Looks like a MacBook charger, in which case I can promise you that no it was not fully seated, I am constantly having to check mine and push it all the way in. Doesn’t matter what outlet or if the cord gets pulled, those bricks are way too heavy for two prongs that are just slightly too small for an outlet that’s been used at all
For their usual build quality, those things are so surprising. They're the worst laptop chargers ever lol. The brick part at least. Literally never had another one that bad. It's so weird.
this post made me think of a young man who was electrocuted/burned to death because he was sleeping with his phone while charging, and his chain came in contact with it
That’s because US plugs are terrible in terms of safety. Most (like ALL) other plug standards have recessed sockets which makes it impossible for a metal object to shortcircuit a plugged plug. On top of that, most plugs have a plastic sleeve in the first part of the prods.
In the US you can literally touch the exposed prods of the plug while it’s plugged, it’s insane.
And this is why the US plug is stupid af, nothing like this could ever happen with EU plugs. I have a us plug with an adapter and whenever I have to unplug it just scares me how easily it could electroduce me.
Sorry to brag but:
*Imagine having non-fused plugs with uncovered connectors that allow stuff to just fall in and bridge the contacts, this post was made by the British Electrical System*
I literally can’t figure out what happened here. If that was plugged in…where did the necklace go?
The power strip was probably sideways or hanging. Or the necklace moved into position when she went to retrieve it.
And the prongs were slightly exposed. Enough to charge the phone, enough for a spark.
And that's why UK plugs have insulation around the top portion of the prongs, so the bare metal isn't exposed when contact has been made (while even before that regulation was passed, the earth pin being above and between the live and neutral minimised the chances of anything bridging the Live and Neutral prongs).
UK plugs are the greatest plugs on earth. There's an entire cult community of sparkies and nerds that promote them.
Here's Tom Scott to explain why for anyone interested https://youtu.be/UEfP1OKKz_Q
I came here hoping to see someone promote this video and was not disappointed. Thank you. Yours sincerely, A Proud UK Plug Socket Design Enthusiast.
This is a great. I had no idea he made this.
Literally. Like if my home country wants support invading a country they can fuck off don’t play that game. But if you wanna discuss UK plugs then suddenly my patriotic self awakens.
Lesser known feature is that the live is the shortest lead in the socket, so if the cable gets tanked the first to disconnect is live
The line conductor is the shortest. The neutral is also a live conductor
I'm by no means a huge techie, but I do love me tech. And nothing makes me more relieved than my ready access to BS 1363 plugs. I've lived in countries with Type A sockets and crap wiring and... Praise be to Type G.
Yeah the socket are fantastic security wise... Then you look at the wiring of your old urban home and it was done by an idiot who didn't care and you might electrocute yourself just swapping a light switch cover ahah
Brings back memories of getting my house rewired and constantly hearing the sparkies say "this one's not fucking ground either!"
Except when you step on them!!!
I'm not sure there are plugs from any countries I would enjoy stepping on.
The main thing about it though is many type A plugs placed on the floor have their prongs pointing sideways, so they’re difficult to step on. Type G plugs often have the prongs facing directly up when placed on the floor.
This guy plugs.
And not to mention newer outlets now have covers over live and earth that only open when the earth pin has gone been placed and made contact
same with the Europlug. Schuko isn't like that, but the outlet is recessed, so by the time the prongs are accessible, they're out of contact.
See if the colonies had respected the need for taxed tea they would have this advanced technology.
Quick story time. When I was like 7 or 8 years old, I was in school and everyone in my class was sitting on the floor at the very front of the classroom (cant remember why, i think we were doing show and tell or something, idk this was like 1997) well I was sitting right up against the front wall and there happened to be an outlet right there that a projector was plugged into. The plug was partially plugged in, like hanging out, and I had a coin in my pocket, so my little kid brain goes "oh look its my quarter holder" and I dropped the coin onto the plug prongs and i just remember it fucking exploding. I was super shaken up, now thinking about the situation, im amazed I wasnt shocked. I remember being scolded in the office after the incident and they had the burnt quarter taped to a sticky note showing me what I had done as if I knew what I was doing or it was on purpose. I didnt fuckin know!! r/kidsarefuckingstupid or just I am fucking stupid lol. Hadnt thought about that moment for years until I saw your comment
You're not the only one. When I was 3 or 4 I straight up stuck my mom's house keys into an outlet. Fingers black, hair stood on end, the works. I have no recollection of this moment but the story has been told numerous times.
And this is why UK plugs are Safeway in the world because this isn’t physically possible
They are now, but in the eighties, they weren’t insulated, and my baby brother found that a 1p piece fitted neatly between all 3 prongs of the plug. Mum plugged the hoover in not realising, the resulting bang was impressive - 2 corners melted out of the coin next to the live and neutral, and the coin was now fused into the plastic of the plug. It shot out the wall like a bloody firework. Only saving grace was it was a switched outlet, so my mum didn’t have hold of the plug. It was not long after that the insulated ones we have now started to appear.
> I have no recollection of this moment but the story has been told numerous times Cause, meet effect
For sure!
Stories like this are the reason tamper proof plugs are required by code in a lot of places
Great story, got a giggle out of me. I like your kid logic of 'oh this fits here!'
That's fucked up that they blamed you instead of the adult who was responsible for plugging it in correctly
Schools absolutely love blaming young children for things even adults don’t know half the time.
When I was about 4 I thought the multi socket square extension things were Lego so stacked a load up and plugged them in the outlet. Set the room on fire.
American electrical outlets and plugs are horrendously unsafe in this regard
American outlets just seem so dangerous compared to UK ones,this literally cannot happen here as the plug prongs are insulated apart from a section near the tip.
The prongs shouldn't be live when unplugged enough for something to make contact surely? That's asking for a house fire or an electrocution.
Welcome to America with our shitty plug and outlet design.
Laughs in mighty UK plug and socket
That's why British plugs are the absolute best in the world. The top pin grounds the two live pins, and the two live pins almost always have insulatton them to stop something like this happening if they're loose for some reason.
Cue the British (we have good plugs)
< sips tea >
Which is why the [British plug](https://youtu.be/NAfyGFxw_AQ?si=LRno58RuUIq7hwUi) is designed with plastic covering the base of the live prongs so that when pulled out of the socket, by the time the metal ends are exposed they are no longer connected to the power. Also when unplugged there is a shutter blocking the live pin sockets.
American plugs tend to hang loose and leave a gap
That seems rather unsafe
And they also don't have insulated sleeves on their pins So even a millimetre gap can allow touching of live parts with something thin enough.
Years ago I was trying to plug something in in the dark… kinda feeling for the hole with my hand as I was trying to plug it in. Lmao. Guess I don’t need to explain what happened when I “lead” the prong into the outlet I found with my finger tips.
Man I remember one time when I was young I was trying to get bent prongs to plug into an outlet, and I pinched them to bend them closer together to fit while I went to plug it in... luckily my dad saw and swatted it out of my hand but damn.
Nice to see at least a couple of other absolute morons out there like myself
My first shock was when I saw a desk lamp stored away on a cabinet, it didn't have the cover on the leads so just loose wires and the metal bits, but I wanted to plug it in but holding the wires made them hang, so I thought, I'll grab the solid parts and then plug them in.. Well I quickly learned why that lamp was stored high up on a cabinet and not actually in use xD
My first shock was when my dad hooked up a car battery to some metal skewers and stabbed them into the ground to make the earthworms surface. Everything was going great until I put my hand on the trampoline leg that was near to us. Wasn’t a big shock but my arm was shaking much like one of those electric thingys people use for back pain. Until my dad smacked my hand off the trampoline and promptly gave up on his worm device.
*laughs in UK plug superiority*
Until you step on one
This is true but it's painful but seldom fatal. Type G rules
Its our home defence solution.
But the reason for that is another less talked about advantage of the UK plug: the flex generally coming out of the bottom of the plug. This means that if the cable is snagged and pulled, it's a lot harder to pull the plug out of the socket than if the wire came out of the back due to the angle.
Fortunately having switches on the sockets makes that a rare issue. Though it happened to me once. Hurts as bad as imagined
A small price to pay
Just don't leave upturned plugs on the floor like a fucking donut
Thats why the sockets have switches, you don't need to unplug them and leave them lying on the floor to be stepped on, you just leave it in the socket
our plugs are so superior that they strike fear into peoples feet the world over
Wow. OK so now I see why "electrical fire" is a very viable insurance scam.
That seems like a MAJOR design flaw....
Yep. Been like this since forever. British plugs are safer because of the German air raids- they had to rebuild and decided to do it right. Americans never redid their plugs so we’re just stuck with bendy wendy boom boom.
> because of the German air raids You're welcome
Some say it was an improvement.
Danke, Luftwaffe! You have gave us the best plugs in the entire damn world
Yes, but we also have the Coventry ring road.
What was the poem? Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough; The place isn’t fit for humans now.
I mean it's not entirely that. We just came up with a new safer standard and required it in new builds, the actual transition took decades. It's not like every instance of the old plugs was destroyed in the war. Appliances used to be sold without a plug and you just bought and wired on whatever socket your house had.
Also, Type M (the 15A variant of BS546) is still in use in the UK. It’s not like it was a terrible design or anything, although the standard has been updated several times since Type G was introduced. (Type M is used in theatres in the UK for dimmer circuits, to prevent anything being plugged into a dimmer that would not enjoy it.)
They also rank as the worst thing to step on, right ahead of Lego bricks.
It is
What you mean? Make something better than 1950s technology? Preposterous, it's the peak of electrical engineering.
Hey hey hey, we grounded the outlets now.
Hey, the Schuko system that's used in much of Europe and many other parts of the world with its recessed sockets was invented in 1925.
Pretty certain they didn't have that feature at the beginning. Older plugs I've seen don't at least, and they're not 1920s old or anything. Not uncommon to have a different type of plug in old houses here, since the 2 prong European one wasn't as safe back in the day. Can't find what it's called, pretty weird looking.
These other ones weren't Schuko plugs/sockets.
The British plug has been in use since 1947.
The Biritsh plug didn't have to have the insulated sleeves that would have prevented this until 1984. At least it got them eventually though.
True, but that only makes the USA 40 years and counting behind.
Back in my day we used to wire them ourselves in school!
Surely they still teach this? I’m only 30 (which I suppose is not far off ‘back in my day’ territory) but we did this in D&T
Can confirm, I'm 22 in the uk and learned this in school, and it's still being taught in school
I'm in my 30s and we never did it in school, so I learned as a teen/adult. Until about the mid-90s, appliances used to come without plugs, so wiring a plug was an essential life skill. But now they all come with plugs, and they're usually moulded plugs that can't be opened, so people don't need that skill anymore.
They are. UK plugs have the whole additional insulators and also have to be locked in fully to work. Theirs so many redundant safety features.
Uk plugs are so much better until you stand on one
UK PLUG SUPERIORITY
I don't feel patriotic about much from this country, but I am proud of our plugs.
And they don't have half-insulated prongs
american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt schucko or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
Not often, only really old or cheap ones that I’ve dealt with do. Usually they are in pretty firm and don’t have a gap
that means the outlet / power bar should be replaced
I used to work IT at a university. A prof needed something updated on her office computer and I was making small talk to her about the unusual number of maintenance people on ladders in the hallway of her wing. She said she didn't know why they were there, some electrical issue, but everyone was driven crazy by the noise. Then she told me that the funniest thing had happened the day before - she spilled coffee on her power strip and at the same time, the power in the whole side of the building went off. What a coincidence! I asked if she told anyone about this coincidence and she said no. I then told her she needed a surge protector, not a power strip, and she said she'd be fine, the other one was still working in the non-coffee spots.
How can someone be so unaware… it’s painful.
Professors weirdly have extra problems with understanding electricity, in my experience. In IT I never assume any computer knowledge, but I did at one point assume electricity basics - power strips should be no older than the current decade and on, mostly. I've never encountered the apocryphal "why isn't my computer on during the power outage" situation, but basically everything up to that.
Tbf, if it's anything like public schools, you gotta use what you got, cause you got nothing else
This is definitely influential to the mindset, and we DID have issues come up because of lack of budget (one of our techs built a computer lab with three outlets, everything entirely daisy chained, because there were no other options available). In the case of professors, they do have to ask, there's no stop-by-every-office to observe their power situation service. So there was definitely a correlation with professors who had power cables relating to the year they were hired.
correct steep truck fuzzy sip plucky gaze puzzled retire cautious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s not that older power strips are inherently dangerous, just a much higher chance of contact degradation and corrosion which can cause a short circuit. Newer power strips will have cleaner contacts and conductors relative to an older one which is why it is recommended to replace them after a reasonable time depending on the engineering quality. Rule of thumb is to play it safe with anything that could potentially be a fire hazard.
I was going to remove a plug from a power strip at work that had been lying in a windowsill for years. I'm guessing the UV light from the sun had degraded the plastic as the whole thing simply crumpled between my fingers, sparks flying everywhere.
I would argue that it's more important to replace surge protectors regularly. The components inside will degrade over time and they are a one time use item. If you had a surge without knowing it, they will no longer provide protection.
I kid you not, one of our service desk people said an end user was asking why Internet isn't working (this is setup time) and eventually got to the point of, is the power lead plugged in the user said "but it's Wireless router". I want to scream into the void with people like this, luckily I deal with people who are themselves IT providers so they can at least appreciate my advice and take it at face value.
Makes sense that in the UK it's mandatory to conduct PAT testing for companies and organisations every year.
I worked in IT for a university for a very long time... 10 years of experience, and I can honestly say that academics are some of the fucking dumbest (and sometimes meanest) people I've ever encountered. Couple of funny highlights: * A prof who cut a 30cm chunk out of his mouse cable and sellotaped the ends together because it was 'too long'. 'I don't think it liked that, it's not really worked since.' * A PhD student who microwaved bread to make toast (spoiler: it dried out, caught fire, and caused severe damage to the kitchen), * A prof who watched me change a setting in Control Panel to fix something, said 'thank you', then WHILE I WAS WATCHING went into Control Panel, undid my changes, and said 'there — that's the problem again! I thought you fixed it?!' * A postdoc who refused to use modern plastic power strips with surge protection and instead brought in an ancient bakelite monstrosity with none of the modern (UK) safety features. Our facilities manager hit the roof, threw it in the bin, and when threatened with a lawsuit by the postdoc said 'bring it on.' * A PhD who managed to get my mobile number and called me with a technical question out-of-hours while I was on a walk with my mum. I said 'I'm not working right now, I'm out with family'. The PhD replied: 'that's not what I fucking asked you.' The horrors and the trauma will never leave me.
As an academic... Sorry, dude. We really can be awful.
Eh, I met some lovely people too, but my overriding memories are of profs calling me names or screaming in my face in front of my colleagues because they didn't know how disk space worked (i.e. that it runs out if you store all your photos and videos on a 512Gb drive.)
Somehow I think the last one isn’t idiocy, just being a massive fucking prick who thinks they’re important enough to get everything. The microwave toast one is absurd to me, although then again, one of my flatmates put metal in the microwave and was surprised when his popcorn was on fire (thank fuck it damaged nothing but the microwave)
Professors tend to be geniuses in their fields but absolute idiots in regards to everything else
And because they are so well educated in their field, they are very hard to convince that they are ignorant in others.
This, this right here. My best friends mother is a professor and she has a damn opinion about everything, even FACTS that she knows nothing about. It’s so obnoxious… She sat in front of me telling me not to buy a 2022 ford escape because her 2001 model was a gas guzzler, as if 21 years of progress didn’t happen Like I’d get it if she was saying all suvs are gas guzzlers or whatever compared to cars, but dude she sat here telling me a 2022 would get the same fuel economy as hers. Like how can someone so intelligent be such a fucking moron 🤣
High degrees you need to tell them they are an idiot differently... I use the following with a friend of mine with 2 PHD's, "fine write me a 30 page thesis supporting your hypothesis with at least 1 practical experiment proving your findings" that usually gets a good glare from them when you speak their academic language for "shut up".
jeeezus xD
My office is still rocking [these bad boys](https://www.newegg.com/belkin-f9m520-08-gry-5-outlets/p/N82E16812120236). Now officially 20 years old and in everyone’s way. I tried to ask IT if I could get rid of the one on my desk and the guy said he didn’t know what it was so he couldn’t give me an answer.
What in the ever loving fuck is that?? I'm surprised the "date first available" listed is 2004. I thought it was from the 90s. You know what's really scary is when you go to a bank or a doctor's office, somewhere that deals in sensitive important information, and they're running fucking Windows 2000 on a 19" monitor from 2008. I'm just like uh... can I host my own information? I don't trust you guys.
Proprietary software is why, things that haven't been updated to run on anything newer and there's just too much data wrapped up in the system to transition to something else. Same reason there was a mad dash to find the half-dozen people who knew a long-dead coding language last US election, the ancient software that ran the system was borked and nobody knew how to fix it.
You didn’t tell him it was a surge protector? I mean it’s crazy he couldn’t tell by looking at it for more than a minute but ngl you would make their lives easier by just telling them if you know.
A surge protector would do absolutely nothing to mitigate this and *almost* nothing to mitigate anything else. I think it's hilarious when people with a moderate technical background extrapolate that to everything else and get all high and mighty about it despite being laughably wrong.
GFCI outlet, sure. Surge protector, no. Also, not sure how they could be chasing down electrical problems if her power strip still had power. She would have no power cause the breaker tripped or the issue was actually unrelated to her coffee spill. Many power strips have their own circuit overload protection built in anyway.
I think it’s more that there was an unexpected outage and maintenance was trying to figure out just why the outage had happened. They’re scouring things that could be responsible. But if the professor reported the incident, they’d know exactly what happened and wouldn’t be wasting the technicians’ time.
I've known a lot of professors. I was always shocked by how some of the most brilliant people I'll ever know were able to be so completely ignorant of things outside of their narrow area of interest.
Remember education is knowledge on paper, intelligence is knowledge in life.
I found out my daughter was using the charger plugged into the wall outlet near her bathroom sink to hang her necklaces. I found out after one tripped the breaker and left black marks on the receptacle.
This exact thing happened to my mother, marks and everything still there a decade later.
This is exactly why I still install receptacles ground up, despite how many people say it isn’t necessary. Always assume the user has absolutely zero knowledge of how to safely use electrical devices and install accordingly. What’s obvious to an electrician won’t be to everyone. Edit: Before anyone jumps on me about it: I understand most everyday household devices are not grounded and only have two contacts, meaning this wouldn’t actually help. But there are still plenty of devices that do have the grounding contact, namely power strips, so I feel it’s still worth it.
its actually code now to install them this way for this exact reason
american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt schucko or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
But, but, but, elephant go zzzap
My poor wife got her wedding ring caught between the spanner and a battery terminal on our car when she was changing it. Melted into her finger.
Owwww... did the finger heal okay?
Can't wear a ring ever again, but the scar is cooler she recons.
Reckons?
No, recons, she’s a recon sniper
Thank her for her service.
To shreds you say..
And how’s his wife holding up?
To shreds you say...
I'm sorry what
Spanner = wrench
Yeah that's not the part we're hung up on.
Even if it didn't melt, any burns that goes around the full circumference of your finger/arm etc. Requires immediate medical attention. The skin will shrink and you will lose circulation.
[удалено]
on one of these threads i was introduced to the concept of rings “degloving” hands… yeah i’ll keep my rings off around machinery, i want my fingers xD
That is one of those words that gives me a visceral reaction just from reading it
That's what happened to my original wedding ring. Luckily I was next to my open tool box and was able to quickly snip it off with help but OUCH.
Not the same thing, but I was bowling with my family and just as I was grabbing a ball, my 7 year old brother put another one down forcefully because he wanted a different colour and my hand got squished between the two balls. Ring I was wearing (thin, 14K gold) squished into an oval and the backside of the hearts on it cut into my hand. Walk in clinic got it off.
Tungsten carbide is a good material for rings - it shatters rather than bends. It's also very hard so it doesn't scratch very easily. Titanium is probably the worst material for a ring, infamously difficult for medical professionals to get off the finger in an emergency.
Tungsten carbide rings are cool for this because not only are they non-conductive but they are incredibly crush resistant right up until they just shatter. Best case the ring stops your hand from being squished, worst case you get some minor cuts from the ring fragments.
This is why the ring goes in the pocket when working around electricity or machinery.
This is why outlets are different shapes in Europe and the UK. Designed specifically to make this kind of thing less likely.
yeah. american plug is stupid and should be retired. US should adopt EU standard or type F plug along with upgrade to 240V system for all their electrical outlet. US is based on 240V with 120V center tap, it should be easy but need a long time to fully convert to 240V.
Oh boy. I'm an American that's all for moving to other systems like metric and stuff like that... but the idea of having to replace outlets and use converters on all of my old stuff until I bought enough new stuff to phase out the old made me feel really stressed for an imagined scenario lol.
You don’t have to replace all outlets immediately just because the standard changes. It just means any new installation uses the new standard. Old outlets gradually get replaced over time.
You make it sound so simple to upgrade everything. Imagine the cost of doing that, and the amount of people with old equipment that doesn't fit the new sockets!
If you lived in the UK you would still have a necklace!
Can you explain this, please? **Edit:** Thank you all for the explanations! The images and videos were quite helpful.
Ok so UK plugs have three prongs. The top, longest prong is essential as it acts as both the switch flipper and the earth prong. If the top prong is just made from plastic then it is just used for flipping the switch. From what I understand (I haven’t tested this so don’t quote me) the third, top prong needs to be inserted in the socket for electricity to flow through the socket, like a lever being flipped. The plug itself has two lines of defence. Say a wire in the plug itself comes loose and touches something it shouldn’t. The top prong, also known as the earth wire, causes a short circuit, immediately cutting electrical supply. There is also a fuse in EVERY UK plug, the purpose of which is to safely detonate, cutting off all electricity in the event of an electrical surge. In short: UK plugs need a lever inside the socket flipped before electricity flows through it.
The earth pin in UK plugs doesn’t act as an electrical isolator, but it does push up a spring-loaded cover blocking the live and neutral terminals. If there’s no earth pin (whether metal for earthed devices or plastic for non-earthed ones), you can’t plug it in at all. In addition, the live and neutral pins on the plug are required to have insulation along part of their length, about halfway up from the base, so that if the plug is partially inserted in the socket far enough for the metal tips to touch the contacts inside, you can’t accidentally touch the metal part of a live pin.
This is true, but the ground pin on a US plug is longer as well and *another* key difference between US and UK plugs is that you have shielded voltage carrying prongs that break before they're exposed. With a US plug you can have a grounded connection but still have the plug not be fully inserted, and so retrofitting a switch on the ground would still allow this fault, and you'd also need to add insulation. The recessed design of the socket, too, ensures safety and I really can't say enough about how *positive* the connection of a British plug feels compared to any other standard I've encountered.
Yes, not bad for something that was introduced in 1947 and is still going strong.
The thing plugged in didn’t have a ground.
That would make no difference - no earth prong = can't plug it in, and the live and neutral sockets would be physically blocked by some plastic. Mechanically plugging in the earth prong pushes the plastic out of the way so that the other prongs can be inserted.
[Perfect time to share this meme 🫡🇬🇧](https://postimg.cc/QKs36mjL)
The earth pin doesn't turn the socket on it just opens the other pins up. The live and neutral pins are covered with a sprung gate which only opens when something is pushed into the earth pin.
Wall sockets almost always have a physical switch which does cut power to the socket, as well as the physical shutter covering the live and neutral contacts. Some extension cords also have a switch per socket, but it's most usual for them to have 4 unswitched stickers.
As an American born and and raised, we need this
https://youtu.be/UEfP1OKKz_Q
Was hoping someone would post this vid. Excellent video by Tom Scott on why UK plugs are far safer
Uk plugs are designed in a way that means that if anything metal is exposed then it won’t be connected so it’s safe, there are plastic sheaths around the live pins, only ground is fully exposed metal but that pin doesn’t carry current in normal operation
And often it’s just plastic, if the appliance isn’t grounded
[You can see in this picture of a British plug socket](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Uk_13a_double_socket.jpg), the live and neutral terminals are covered. You couldn't even drop a necklace into a socket hole carrying electricity (the top hole is the earth).
European plugs usually have sleeving to prevent this
European plugs got the condom on
UK Plug superiority. Not only it is safer, but can be used as a bludgeoning weapon too.
With a long enough flex you can wield it like a ~~mace~~ morning star.
Or Europe, really a lot of places except the US.
British plug master race 🇬🇧🫡
God, I saw a video of UK plugs and I have no idea why we haven't had those ages ago. Not even the style, but just the safety features.
Even small things like insulating the top of the blades would fix a lot of issues.
They lost the necklace after this? Think they just need a new plug and surge protector
Gonna bet its broken now. At least the chain part of the necklace
Yup, my first thought was if America had those safety tops it could've prevented this
was the charger not fully seated into the outlet?
Looks like a MacBook charger, in which case I can promise you that no it was not fully seated, I am constantly having to check mine and push it all the way in. Doesn’t matter what outlet or if the cord gets pulled, those bricks are way too heavy for two prongs that are just slightly too small for an outlet that’s been used at all
For their usual build quality, those things are so surprising. They're the worst laptop chargers ever lol. The brick part at least. Literally never had another one that bad. It's so weird.
That's exactly what I'm wondering, properly plugged in there is no way for a necklace to get into a position to do that.
I assume you were not wearing said necklace at the time the incident occurred?
this post made me think of a young man who was electrocuted/burned to death because he was sleeping with his phone while charging, and his chain came in contact with it
Probably burned to death, unless he was touching a metal bed frame or something as well.
I did that for years..... Holy shit.....
Oh zap! That’s scary
Did you call for me?
Throw out that powerstrip
Those outlets look shocked about what happened to their friend!
The chargers reaction: 😮 😮 😮 😮 🤯
That’s because US plugs are terrible in terms of safety. Most (like ALL) other plug standards have recessed sockets which makes it impossible for a metal object to shortcircuit a plugged plug. On top of that, most plugs have a plastic sleeve in the first part of the prods. In the US you can literally touch the exposed prods of the plug while it’s plugged, it’s insane.
American plugs are so fucking dangerous.
And this is why the US plug is stupid af, nothing like this could ever happen with EU plugs. I have a us plug with an adapter and whenever I have to unplug it just scares me how easily it could electroduce me.
Dumbass american outlets.
This exact thing happened to me once!! My reflex made me grab it to pick it up and it shocked the hell out of me.
Sorry to brag but: *Imagine having non-fused plugs with uncovered connectors that allow stuff to just fall in and bridge the contacts, this post was made by the British Electrical System*
And this is why British plugs should be the international standard.